Network Logic - Index of
Network Logic - Index of
Network Logic - Index of
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<strong>Network</strong> logic<br />
against risk: protection from invasion and attack, then in the<br />
nineteenth century from disease, and later still protection from<br />
poverty and unemployment. Much <strong>of</strong> what we count as progress in<br />
urbanised societies has been the increasing success <strong>of</strong> many states in<br />
protecting their citizens – from war, disease and poverty.<br />
Some expected a networked world based on information to reverse<br />
this, or at least to <strong>of</strong>fer a different way <strong>of</strong> handling risk. It is certainly<br />
harder for states to build certain kinds <strong>of</strong> walls or control what<br />
information and knowledge reaches their citizens (though the Taliban<br />
tried). The other widespread prediction was that a more networked<br />
world would inevitably encourage greater individualisation <strong>of</strong> risk,<br />
which might leave each person, or at least everyone with the means to<br />
do so, with their own insurance, purchased on global markets,<br />
calibrated using sophisticated algorithms, particularly with new<br />
genetic knowledge. People would buy their own security, education,<br />
or healthcare, as the state, and pooled risk, withered away.<br />
The reality is very different. We remain in a world where many<br />
risks are collective and where the public rationally looks to public<br />
institutions to protect them. These include the risks <strong>of</strong> instability in<br />
the global market, the risks <strong>of</strong> attacks on systems on which we depend<br />
(from food distribution to electricity), risks to personal privacy or<br />
global warming (in each <strong>of</strong> which states can be as much the problem<br />
as the solution). Paradoxically the very speed with which networks<br />
have advanced has reinforced the need for stronger legitimate<br />
authorities to protect people from the risks they have brought in their<br />
wake.<br />
The nature <strong>of</strong> risk also underscores the importance <strong>of</strong> moral<br />
obligations to others. September 11 was a reminder that even the<br />
richest and most powerful remain vulnerable. Thomas Hobbes’s<br />
words from over 300 years ago have special resonance now.<br />
In Leviathan he wrote that ‘the weakest has strength enough to kill<br />
the strongest, either by secret machination or by confederacy with<br />
others …’, which is why the strongest need to care about the lives and<br />
needs <strong>of</strong> the weakest.<br />
54 Demos